Making the Team Work The Nature of Challenges in Public-Private Partnerships, a Case Study

Researchers indicate how the current societal challenges can be solved through Public Private
Partnerships (PPPs) that aim to create social value. One of the examples is social value creation through
innovation in smart cities. Due to the diverging logics and governance modes between public and
private organizations, PPPs however face major challenges, already largely identified in literature. As
deeper understanding of these difficulties is called for, this research set out to investigate why they
arise through an in depth case study. Building on the insights already gained by scholars, this study
conducted a process research, resulting in a causal loop diagram providing a narrative of how three
processes made the initial managerial enthusiasm and high relational embeddedness to decrease. The
results indicate a paradoxical situation internal to the PPP, as well as a remaining high involvement of
the host organizations and the goals associated with their logics: social and economic value creation.
The three processes are intertwined and motivate the private actor to decrease its efforts, through
which it hampers social value creation.